Can we really blame the slow recovery of the economy on the lack of engineering students... 8

[JohnRBaker]

Well this should elicit some interesting discussion as the editor of 'Machine Design' magazine seems to think so, or at least he appears to be agreeing with someone who's written a book that includes this claim and supposedly has the data to back it up:

http://machinedesign.com/editorial-comment/those-dead-beat-liberal-arts-students

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[moltenmetal]

Greg, you make a primary mistake that most engineers make, in that you over-generalize your own experience and assume that it applies to others. What you meant to say is that your own experience indicates that it's possible to earn a good living as an engineer. Actually, your experience indicates that it WAS possible- for you. And it is- still - for some- especially for people who did manage to break into the profession and now have experience that companies seem to find to be in short supply. But it's nowhere nearly as easy for the average engineering grad to earn a good living as an engineer now as it was fifty or sixty or seventy years ago, and it has been getting steadily worse. Engineering's compensation level has slipped compared with all the other regulated professions, and not by a little, and it's not because they've improved and we've stood still. And the situation for fresh grads from engineering programs has been getting steadily worse also, as has the number of engineering grads working as engineers. That's not based on anecdotes- it's based on measurements, which tell the story for the average person far better than the anecdotes do.

 

[GregLocock]

I don't think the link I pointed to has any connection with me, in fact I know it doesn't, as my salary is off their scale!

http://www.seek.com.au/jobs-resources/

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[JohnRBaker]

So's mine, but perhaps I'm in a rather unique position considering I left 'traditional' engineering some 33+ years ago and moved into a role where I became part of a totally new 'industry' creating the tools which are now the stock and trade of most every engineer, in one form or another. So I suspect that my current level of compensation does not reflect what's happening in the 'real world', something that I've had to point out to my wife on several occasions over the years when she's suggested that perhaps I should go out and get a 'real' engineering job again and leave all this 'marketing' hype to someone else. As I've alluded to here, and after listening to some of the recent comments, I'm damn glad that I never gave in to her wild ideas ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
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Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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Siemens PLM:
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[cranky108]

Getting the degree is just the starting point. What people do after that is what makes a real engineer.

There seems to be people who do well as students, but can't seem to translate that into a useful skill. Book smart is the term.

And maybe some of that is the fault of how they are educated, or just that don't really have the right stuff.

 

[GregLocock]

When I did my degree if you had an aptitude for maths and physics, but maybe weren't going to cut it as a mathematician or a scientist, career advisers in the UK had a nasty tendency to recommend engineering as a degree. I also remember the hilariously bad advice not to mention that you fixed cars/motorbikes etc in job interviews. I'm pretty sure I got through my first successful interview because my interviewer was thinking about buying the same lathe as we had at home. Between those two reasons we ended up with a generation of engineering graduates who were a bit light on the hands-on side of things.

To be fair this was recognised to some extent, I was fortunate enough to get on a so-called thick sandwich scheme, which gave me a year in industry , work in the vacations as I did my degree, and another year after uni, in theory. However that covered only a small proportion of engineering students. Some universities specialised in thin sandwich courses where the industrial placements were integrated more tightly into the degree, something that could be excellent if done well.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[cranky108]

If you notice my area of engineering, you will see that "Hands on" has a different meaning. But you are correct that many engineers who don't have the hands on just don't seem to have as deep of an understanding.

In the US I believe they call those programs as Coop programs, or internship programs. They help, but it is sad to say many companies don't seem to have those positions, as they were cut in the economic slowdown.

The other thing is we often have to teach students that we don't work with pico, we use Mega. The educations tend to be more in the small electrical world, and not the big stuff.

 

[moltenmetal]

Greg: you said "And frankly, in 34 years I've been unemployed for a grand total of 2 months. " It was that I was responding to, not the link. I can point people to salary.com too, and the numbers in there are rubbish- when you compare them with the real Ontario professional engineers salary survey data.

The median salary of a level D professional engineer here in Ontario is equal to the median salary for a schoolteacher, once you adjust for all those extra holidays the teachers get. While teachers do important work and deserve decent pay, that's not a singing endorsement of engineering as a choice of profession.

 

[GregLocock]

Ah OK. That might be a survey worth doing, across professions - how long have people been unemployed in their working lives?

Actually the pay scales I posted from seek seemed a bit on the low side to me, but they are mostly for up to 10 years of experience, not senior engineers and the like.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[JohnRBaker]

I had a longer post that I just blew away, so rather then start over I'll just say that in the 51 years since I took my first real job working in a meat market at 15 years of age, until today, I've been without a job a total of perhaps 11 months. And since the majority of THAT time was while I was a freshman in college, I guess you could say that technically, I've NEVER been 'unemployed'.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[moltenmetal]

Sum total of a week for me since eng grad, over 20 years- but that's the past, which is not a meaningful predictor of the present much less the future. I had a job lined up before I graduated, left it for another, lost that one and had the third about a week after I finished some work on contract for the 2nd one that they had to pay me to complete before they let me go. But I was top 5% of my class at one of the best unis in Canada, with excellent co-op work experience. If I had a hard time finding a good job (and finding that 1st one post grad was no picnic- it was hard work!), then many others were going to be totally screwed. With that first job search, it was timing- staying on to do a Masters delayed my job search from an economic peak to a trough, but it was still good experience for me. Taught me how hard it is to measure anything reliably.

 

[Gymmeh]

In 6 years, had a 5 month stint, after a layoff. My layoff happened at the same time a local, major aerospace company layed off 300 people. So the Market is pretty flooded with engineering folk.

Definitely an eye opening experience, being unemployed.

 

[JohnRBaker]

While I agree that "past peformance is no indicator of future returns", since I'm already past the normal retirement age, the next time I'm without a job, it will be entirely my choice and I will NOT be worrying too much about finding a new one ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[KENAT]

very vaguely relevant

http://news.msn.com/us/obama-wants-students-to-know-he-thinks-art-history-is-cool

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[GregLocock]

I am interested to hear that the humanities play a big part in engineering.

Linda Downs issued a statement in response to the statement, offering a defense of the liberal arts:

"Humanities graduates play leading roles in corporations, engineering,..."

All those art historians lolling about in our design meetings, suggesting ways that we should incorporate the Cubist Imperative into suspension design must be her idea.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[KENAT]

Yeah, I wasn't buying it and the President dignifying their ivory tower gnashing of teeth with a hand written note didn't impress me.

However, if we aren't careful this will lead to the old trade school V 'university' debate again.

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[cranky108]

Yea, I get it about humanities. As my wife has told me many times, it dosen't look good, so put it in the back yard. The front yard is for what we want the neibors to see.

I think part of it is to rise the cost of going to a university, and justifying staff.

Just maybe if they streamlined the corse work, and got rid of more of the needless stuff they might attract more engineering students.

Or maybe to get a humanities degree they should require calculas II (I like this better). At least that way they can calculate how long they will be in the unemployment line.

 

[rconnor]

Why do we feel the necessity to jab at the humanities whenever we have topics such as this? Do we feel it validates our professional by insulting and degrading others? Do we feel hard done by given all the attention and praise the humanities get (I can’t even type that with a straight face)?

I’m sick of this debasing of the humanities by not just this forum, but our society at large. At best, we view people who study the humanities as irrelevant and, at worst (which is continually demonstrated here), we treat them as entitled parasites on our otherwise productive society.

There are two things that make us human, that separate us from other species, that define us, that enrich our existence: our ability to understand the natural world and our ability to create and appreciate works of art. I do the former as a part of my vocation, which is predominately why I entered into this field, and attempt to do the latter (poorly) by avocation. If people choose to do it the other way around, all the power to them as we NEED people doing both.

I would add that my most intelligent and interesting friends have backgrounds in the humanities. The humanities really stress clear and critical, yet creative, thought and this allows them to analyze information in a very deep way. They can pull out profound sentiments from even the most (seemingly) trivial subject. They can dissect and critique arguments with great precision. They understand the nuisances of subjectivity and tend to be much more open and welcoming to things that are “different”. It is this critical and logical thought process augmented by openness and creativity that we want in our citizenry, yet sorely lack.

We know this and yet continue to dissuade or downright condemn the study of humanities. We have swallowed the concept that which cannot be commidified, should be shunned. If we can’t turn this knowledge into profit, then it is useless to us. I’ve made this same argument in support of fundamental/curiosity-driven science research. It is shameful that we have, in the name of “economic prosperity”, lost touch with the two most humanizing endeavors.

 

[moltenmetal]

rconnor: the arts and humanities from an educational perspective at the university level were just the canaries in the coalmine. Their grads went into oversupply first, decades before the rest, but the sciences followed and so did engineering. The old days when people could make fun of arts students for their uniquely poor job prospects are long gone. Engineering grads are now just as likely as the average uni grad to be out of work six months or two years after graduation, and more likely by far than the grads of any other profession program (including education and accounting) to be working outside their chosen profession. So that old mockery is utterly out of step with the current reality.

As far as the idea that engineers need to take arts and humanities courses to become "well rounded citizens", I think it's a naïve concept at best. I've heard people talk about how they were going to improve society by mandating sustainability courses for engineers, etc., and wondered if the people talking had any experience working outside of a university in their lives... An engineer graduating without a single nontech elective will still be better educated in broad terms (by virtue of the required courses in high school and the typically high marks expectation to enter a uni eng program) than anyone who stops their education after high school or who pursues a tech course at a community college. A writing course should be mandatory, as should a course in professional ethics and law, but beyond that it's a matter of personal interest in my opinion. Mandating the other nontech electives so that you get x courses in arts and y courses in social sciences has little to do with generating well-rounded engineers and more to do with providing funding units (i.e. bums in seats, typically in massive lecture halls) to those programs.

 

[cranky108]

Actually I took Economics as a humanitys, and thought it very good. But some of the other stuff is pure bilge water. Art is in the eyes of the viewer, and I view much of it as distracting at the least.

I view much of what I do as Art, but I don't have bankers lineing up to put computer code or Boolean equasions on there walls. So yes I do make fun of humanities because it dosen't seem to have a function to me. It just dosen't speek.

 

[KENAT]

Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex, perhaps someone should have warned about the academic industrial complex.

When a tiny proportion of the population got the chance to go to university, having a large amount of that small group getting 'education for the sake of education' quite probably made a lot of sense - especially when combined with where they were in scientific progress/history etc.

However, now that a much larger proportion of the population get the chance to attend university does the same emphasis on 'education for the sake of education' scale?

How much of it is more about job security of the academic elites? How much about pretentious self importance? Is Gregorian Chanting for instance really so important that a large proportion of college grads should have studied it?

The humanities or even arts are a broad sector, perhaps too broad to try and generalize as often gets done.

However, I speak as something of a Philistine when it comes to art and culture so take what I say with a big pinch of salt.

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